ADDITIONAL SPOILER WARNING
It's a double irony: it has been suggested in the movie that the protagonist Dr KO Tsing, a psychiatrist, is schizophrenic, something that can be said about the movie itself which cannot quite make up its mind whether to be a love story or a horror thriller. Actually, there shouldn't be a problem for a movie to be both but here the two elements repel each other like oil and water. Another flaw is that there is such a proliferation of borrowed ideas that it compels you to wonder where the originality of director Tsui Hark has gone.
The openings scenes are delightfully lucid, an elegant depiction of how a young women CHAN Siu-hoi (Isabella Leung) brings together her photographer brother Kwok-tung and Tsing, both dedicated professionals who have little time for romance but a common interest in diving. As the relationship develops and blossoms, we see the three planning a diving trip to explore a sunken, mysterious ancient kingdom.
Abruptly, the next shot brings us to a desolate funeral as we learn that Kwok-tung had died underwater in the adventure while Tsing has had a partial loss of memory of what happened. What ensues, the main body of the movie, is a psychological thriller with an "I see dead people" diversion, and also a distinct "Ghost" (1990) flavour. As the array of mysteries and twists are gradually disentangled, we are finally handed an overriding twist that is not unlike the cop out in movies like "Vanilla sky" (2001). What you've seen in this entire segment is only in Tsing's mind. The accident did happen, but the rest is what she constructs in her mind to try to explain everything.
In the third and final segment, we see how Tsing, discharged from the psychiatric hospital and under the care of Siu-hoi, has completely lost her memory. Here, we see a remarkable resemblance to "Floating landscape" (2003) which depicts how a women whose fiancé had died of illness goes to his home town to look for a landscape of white blossoms that he had loved, and in the process discovers more about him. Here, Tsing needs to re-discover Kwok-tung from square one, and the landscape here is "feng loi" ("paradise" in Chinese), in a photograph taken from inside his small hideaway cabin on an idyllic beach, focusing on a small island in the middle of the ocean.
The thriller part of the movie is somewhat contrived. The love story should have been better, particularly with the good performance of Angelica Lee, but suffers from lacking a sufficient development before the man dies, as you see in "Ghost". Angelica Lee did as much as anybody could, and the beautiful music (particularly the theme song) helps. In the end, this movie brings flashes of ideas and scenes that remind you of what director Tsui can do, but is on the whole a disappointment.
It's a double irony: it has been suggested in the movie that the protagonist Dr KO Tsing, a psychiatrist, is schizophrenic, something that can be said about the movie itself which cannot quite make up its mind whether to be a love story or a horror thriller. Actually, there shouldn't be a problem for a movie to be both but here the two elements repel each other like oil and water. Another flaw is that there is such a proliferation of borrowed ideas that it compels you to wonder where the originality of director Tsui Hark has gone.
The openings scenes are delightfully lucid, an elegant depiction of how a young women CHAN Siu-hoi (Isabella Leung) brings together her photographer brother Kwok-tung and Tsing, both dedicated professionals who have little time for romance but a common interest in diving. As the relationship develops and blossoms, we see the three planning a diving trip to explore a sunken, mysterious ancient kingdom.
Abruptly, the next shot brings us to a desolate funeral as we learn that Kwok-tung had died underwater in the adventure while Tsing has had a partial loss of memory of what happened. What ensues, the main body of the movie, is a psychological thriller with an "I see dead people" diversion, and also a distinct "Ghost" (1990) flavour. As the array of mysteries and twists are gradually disentangled, we are finally handed an overriding twist that is not unlike the cop out in movies like "Vanilla sky" (2001). What you've seen in this entire segment is only in Tsing's mind. The accident did happen, but the rest is what she constructs in her mind to try to explain everything.
In the third and final segment, we see how Tsing, discharged from the psychiatric hospital and under the care of Siu-hoi, has completely lost her memory. Here, we see a remarkable resemblance to "Floating landscape" (2003) which depicts how a women whose fiancé had died of illness goes to his home town to look for a landscape of white blossoms that he had loved, and in the process discovers more about him. Here, Tsing needs to re-discover Kwok-tung from square one, and the landscape here is "feng loi" ("paradise" in Chinese), in a photograph taken from inside his small hideaway cabin on an idyllic beach, focusing on a small island in the middle of the ocean.
The thriller part of the movie is somewhat contrived. The love story should have been better, particularly with the good performance of Angelica Lee, but suffers from lacking a sufficient development before the man dies, as you see in "Ghost". Angelica Lee did as much as anybody could, and the beautiful music (particularly the theme song) helps. In the end, this movie brings flashes of ideas and scenes that remind you of what director Tsui can do, but is on the whole a disappointment.